Sam Erickson's sound advice

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We Are Not a Glum Lot have done more than their share of growing up in public, with a spacey, instrumental-heavy sound that earned them opening slots for national touring acts back while they were still wandering the halls of Palmer High. Singer-guitarist Sam Erickson, bassist Zac Blum and drummer Reggie Thompson returned to the studio last year to record the very tentatively titled The Price of Simply Existing, with Eros and the Eschaton’s Adam Hawkins once again at the recording console. Erickson says the sophomore full-length album will be released in early 2018, and that the new songs are “more heavy and concise” than the band’s previous work. We recently checked in with him to talk about art-pop, hip-hop and other not-so-guilty pleasures.

Essential Saturday night song: “Nights” by Frank Ocean. It reminds me of aimlessly driving around with my friends at night and just being happy that we’re all doing nothing in particular together.

Essential Sunday morning song: “This Is the Last Time” by The National if you’re hungover. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” by Wilco if not. I will issue a warning that if your girlfriend or boyfriend just broke up with you, you’re in for a rough Sunday regardless of what song you listen to.

“Wish I’d written that” song: Everything Elliott Smith did really resonates with me as a musician, as well as a person. If I was forced to choose one song of his in particular, I’d go with “Rose Parade” off Either/Or. It portrays that melancholic and apathetic sentiment so perfectly. It’s just a beautiful, catchy song.

Favorite song to cover live: We’ve been doing “Airbag” by Radiohead lately. We don’t normally do covers, but getting to play that fucking awesome riff in the beginning of the song was too alluring for us not to. OK Computer is more relevant now than ever, and “Airbag” is just so epic and larger than life.

Artist more people should know about: Dino Belli. He’s a fantastic singer-songwriter that I was lucky enough to meet when I first started out doing music here, when I was 14 or 15. We played with his band the Flumps a lot during those years, and I was always blown away by them. He’s always been a great role model, musician and friend to me, and I’m really thankful I know him. His music is very lush and deep, both lyrically and musically. There’s no doubt in my mind that he is equally talented if not more so than most of the well-known modern singer-songwriters out there today. Check out his new album Obscurities on Bandcamp.

Guilty pleasure: A lot of the music I like doesn’t really resonate with some people. I’m really into The Weeknd and Drake. I love a lot of the recent hip-hop/R&B/pop music that’s been coming out. I like a lot of ‘90s emo and I like some early mid-2000s pop-punk bands. I also listen to a lot of alt-country and “sad bastard” music. Art is very subjective, so I can’t say I’m guilty or embarrassed by anything I’m into. I don’t think I really have a choice in what type of music speaks to me, so why should I give a shit about what other people think?